Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 12:24:29 -0700 From: alex@comsys.com To: Jawaid Bazyar <bazyar@hypermall.com> Cc: inet-access@earth.com, linuxisp@friendly.jeffnet.org, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG, iap@vma.cc.nd.edu Subject: Re: US West and RADSL (fwd) Message-ID: <3579976D.6974D1FA@comsys.com> References: <Pine.LNX.3.91.980606122248.20041D-100000@hypermall.com>
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I don't agree. "Let the phone companies...." has little meaning. What you suggest.. is that the phone company monopoly is a good thing. That the on-ramp to the Internet is a better serviced by the telephone company, and that the telephone company really should collect the local loop charges for access to all networks of the future. Your figures for qualified copper are not representative of the US telco copper plant. We have lots of Personal T1 modem customers and ISPs that have little trouble getting qualified copper and competing in the local market with the ILECs, CLECs and CAPs of the world. There is no reason that ISPs with a POP adjacent to COs or those wishing to collocate in telco COs shouldn't pursue that. Free enterprise is why the Internet is a viable, lively place to be. Imagine the Internet dominated by the leading telco companies. Wouldn't it look much like the telephone system does? There's really been very little innovation from the telephone companies, unless you'd like to count advances such as $.50 to complete your Directory Assistance call, $.50 to find out who rang your telephone, $.50 to make a directory inquiry, $.50 to conference in another party. and on. I can't imagine the Internet becoming a network of billing machines. In fact, over 49 billion a year is spent just on facilities for billing in the telco marketplace. I suspect that $.45 of each service bill goes to pay for the billing equipment and $.05 pays for the amortized cost of the digital switch. ISPs should unite, make as much noise as possible to their congress representatives and senators. Insure an open and free enterprise environment for ISPs, the bulk of whom we can thank for low cost Internet access, great service, integrity, innovation and much of the excitement of the past 4 years in the technology economy. The economy is changing in ways yet not to clear to most. The efforts to centralize the Internet under the old-world telco development, billing, service and maintenance umbrella isn't attractive. Distributed, open, competitive, innovative is much healthier for the US economy What would the cost of a hub be if they were being built by only 3 companies? There are many ISPs that compete in high density financial districts and there are many who offer service in rural locations. It makes great sense to set up POPs since every one can produce money. It isn't necessary to create POPs in every CO area, just as the telco's demonstrated with ISDN availability. Keeping copper accessible to all ISPs, it's an important part of an on-ramp to the Internet, and networks of the future. A toll road owned by a few centralized businesses isn't my cup of tea. Hang in there and keep the roads open. Jawaid Bazyar wrote: > On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Michael Dillon wrote: > > > If a DSL customer uses the telco as their ISP then the telco routes their > > packets through their own Internet connection. But if the customer chooses > > an alternate "DSL-enabled" ISP then the telco routes the packets through a > > local connection to that ISP. This local connection is what makes the ISP > > DSL-enabled. > > > > Note that this is different from what most ISPs want. Most ISPs want to > > install their own DSLAM in the telco building and hook the customer's > > copper directly to that. Or alternatively they want to be in a building > > next door with reasonable low rates for access to the copper something > > like zero-mile circuits that are found in colo facilities. > > Let's examine what ISPs *think* they want. > > The cheapest DSLAM setup that can host more than a single customer and > scale to anything reasonable costs in excess of $10,000. Yes, you can get > a onesy-twosy Pairgain modem type thing for a grand or two, but do you > really want to pay $2K per port long-term? I didn't think so. > > Alright, the Denver metro area as an example has approximately 30 central > offices. Instantly, in order to reach the whole potential customer base, > you're looking at $300,000. Just in equipment. Now you have to tie all > that together, in which case you're probably still looking at (minimum) > 30 T1 ports into an ATM cloud, at $400 per month each, for a total of > $12,000 a month. Not to mention co-location/rent fees, anywhere from a > couple hundred to a couple thousand a month. > > And yes, you *have* to hit the entire area for this to make economic > sense, because we're seeing loop qualification rates of 15% to 25%. That > means that less than a quarter of the phone lines coming into the office > are even capable of having DSL run over them. > > So, take your existing customer base, divide by two to weed out those who > won't pay more than $20/mo for anything, divide by five to get the number > you can reach at all with DSL, and divide by two again for those who are > happy with their existing internet service. > > Are you *really* going to invest $300,000 cash and $12,000 to $50,000 a > month so you can serve DSL to maybe 1/20th of your customer base? Exactly > which "most ISPs" can afford that? Ohh, right. The *big* ones. > > Let the telco make this infrastructure enhancement. That's what it is. > The economics of this dictate that some one single company make the > investment, and since it's the telco's copper and the telco's central > office, and since the telco is willing to sell the service at a very > reasonable price, let the telco pay for it. > > For ISPs to try to get Washington DC to 'force' telcos to give them > access to something that doesn't make any economic sense is a complete > waste of energy. That energy should be spent on spam legislation, or > fighting the comeback of Internet censorship. > > Force the telcos to let ISPs in, and you'll get it. But it won't be "most > ISPs". In fact, forcing this may well make it impossible for small ISPs > to get access, whereas only the largest ISPs can afford the "drop a DSLAM > in every CO" arrangement. > > The above might be feasible in a small town with one or two COs. But not > in any large metro area - and that's where the big money is. > > -- > Jawaid Bazyar | Affordable WWW & Internet Solutions > Interlink Advertising Svcs | for Small Business > bazyar@hypermall.com | 910 16th Street, #1220 (303) 228-0070 > --The Future is Now!-- | Denver, CO 80202 (303) 789-4197 fax > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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